Haripur embankment still unrepaired

Damaged Haripur safety embankment near Wazirabad on the south bank of River Chenab could not be repaired despite the government orders after its destruction in the last year floods while more floods are feared after two months, local people regretted.

Wazirabad and its adjacent villages are once again in danger, they feared. In August 2014, high flood had breached the bund near Haripur Railway Station, 1 km north of Wazirabad. Resultantly, the floodwater had entered Wazirabad and inundated some adjacent villages and crops. Floodwater was still present in the low-lying areas, they said.

“The 4-km embankment could not bear the pressure of flood and breached. The embankment has broken from 4 points and as a result it gives easy passage even to low level flood,” they said. Soon after the flood, they added, the government of Punjab had directed the relevant departments for repair of the damaged portions of the bund but to no avail.

The government spent approximately Rs4 billion for the survival of affectees but no single rupee was spent for the repair of bund, they said. No work has been carried out to raise the height of bund for a long time, they added.

Haripur Depot, a Railway’s sleepers process unit, is also situated in a triangle of bund which is also unsafe and was hit by flood in 2014. Socio-political Circle of Wazirabad and growers near Haripur Safety Bund demanded that the government should include its repair work in pre-flood arrangements to save Wazirabad especially its vast agriculture land from the atrocities of flood and to avoid human and pets loss.